There have been so many beautiful and helpful responses to the aftermath of the election. I would like to offer something a little different:

In my practice recently, I have become aware of certain universal human experiences that seem to function like fields of energy. The experiences can be love and trust, anger and fear. When these “fields” manifest in our lives, they take on a garb, the particular color and expression of our distinct, individual experience and context. But the underlying field of the experience is not our personal invention and is not unique to us.

Suffering is one of these fields. It is a universal experience that manifests in each of our lives in unique and concrete way. We can know it in personal and systemic garb, through illness or addiction, through poverty or discrimination and any other number of ways. Each garb has its set of strategies and reactions that come with it as we struggle to find the best way to address that particular kind of suffering.

But the thing about suffering is that it often tends to confuse us into thinking that our experience is separate from all others’ experiences. We focus on the garb, not the universality. As Tolstoy famously said, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Furthermore, we know from our practice that this very sense of isolation and separation is itself at the root of so much suffering. So it becomes a vicious cycle: suffering, separateness, alienation, more suffering and so it begins again.

Ironically, suffering is something that people on both sides of the political divide have in common, although the explanations and strategies concerning it vary widely. But if we can experiment with experiencing suffering as a universal field, we have a chance to open to mochin degadlut, a wider perspective. You might want to try this:

Take a seat of dignity and sense into your body.

Where is sensation arising?

What does the sensation help you notice about the climate of your heart/mind right now? Stay with whatever emotion arises in the body.

Now imagine that emotion as a huge, broad energy field that comes up from the ground and fills you, taking your shape as it does. What does it feel like?

Now imagine that this same energy field is also taking shape within others, those you agree with and those you don’t.

Return to the sensation in the body and see if you can soften a little around it. Breathe and soften. If you choose, try imagining the energy field again, in yourself and in others.

Perhaps it is possible to sense in our bones the potential of relief and the possibility of more connection, maybe even love. Perhaps that will help us discern with wisdom and generosity how we can best move forward now – for ourselves, our communities and our country.

With love,

Rabbi Lisa Goldstein

]]>http://www.jewishspirituality.org/what-now-a-practice-for-the-aftermath-of-the-election/feed/0Interconnected: An Intention for Elulhttp://www.jewishspirituality.org/interconnected-an-intention-for-elul/
http://www.jewishspirituality.org/interconnected-an-intention-for-elul/#respondMon, 12 Sep 2016 15:56:38 +0000http://www.jewishspirituality.org/?p=4486Read more »]]>Scene one: I went to the local farmer’s market and bought some berries. I brought them home and when I opened the box to finish my lunch with fresh fruit, I noticed that the whole package was laced with mold. I was annoyed; the berries weren’t cheap! I grabbed my purse and the box and marched back up to the market in the hot afternoon sun. I got in line at the stand, only to be told by the woman in front of me that the line actually wound down the street and I had to go and stand over there. Just as it was my turn to move up, another woman, who also didn’t understand how the line worked, edged in to step before me. I curtly informed her that the end of the line was over there. She blinked, stood a moment, then put her items back and walked away, telling me that she hoped I didn’t hurt other people the way I had hurt her. Confused and contrite, I apologized, but she tossed a rude gesture over her shoulder and didn’t look back.

Yuck.

Scene two: It was a rainy morning, which somehow always means the subway is more crowded. I managed to squeeze my way in so I could get to work on time, only to end up on an express train that stopped between stations and sat for long minutes. A man in the car was demonstrating a new game on his phone to his friend. Apparently, he didn’t know you can turn off the sound and everyone was forced to listen to the endless insipid loop of music punctuated with little “whee’s!” and “ka-ching’s!” Did I mention it was loud? I breathed. I said to myself, “This is unpleasant.” I felt my annoyance rise in my chest. Then the man in front of me started dancing a goofy dance to the music and I had to laugh.

Ahh.

As we come into Elul, I am considering the interconnected nature of our actions. Sometimes I think that the way to actually know the underlying Oneness of everything is through certain kinds of mystical experience, but then I begin noticing how just paying attention to what we do brings the same insight home. My grumpiness is infectious. It rises up and pours out in my words, my tone, my body language. It makes another person’s bad day even worse. The same is true for joy, as well. The same is true for love. We are so profoundly interconnected as individuals. How much the more so are we interconnected as communities and nations and species on this small planet!

My intention for Elul is to become as awake as I can to the intended and unintended consequences of my actions. And who knows? Perhaps that will help prepare me for a more mystical experience of interconnectedness as the High Holy Day season begins next month.

It’s getting to the point where I dread checking the news or signing onto Facebook. The spiking of violence in so many parts of the world, including on our own streets, the unbridled vitriol, the screaming without listening, the hot rage – perhaps I am getting old and myopic, but I don’t remember seeing this much venom before. I feel my heart close up, pressure in my throat. It is so profoundly unpleasant. I dislike the anger rising up in me and I want to turn away. But somehow I can’t.

I am also aware that we are currently in the three weeks of mourning leading up to Tisha B’Av, which will be observed on August 14th this year. Some years, I must confess, this day commemorating the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem feels a little counter-intuitive to me. It’s summer! It’s a time of abundance! And what is this about the Temple? Perhaps I can grasp it as a symbol, but really, why focus on grief and mourning now?

Then I read an excerpt from Rabbi David Jaffe’s soon-to-be-published book, Changing the World from the Inside Out: A Jewish Path for Personal and Social Change. Rabbi Jaffe differentiates between “hot anger,” which is passionate and explosive, and “cold anger,” which is grounded in grief and loss. According to Jaffe, this cold anger can lead to creative solutions to intractable problems. And I thought, “Aha!”

The rituals of mourning that accompany Tisha B’Av can help me surface the grief and loss that is lurking under the despair and anger. There is so much to grieve: the lost lives, the disintegration of civil discourse, the loss inherent in not feeling safe, the fear that all of this evokes. When I sit with the grief that is under the other emotions, I can connect back to my heart. I can feel my own vulnerability and humanity. I might even feel the vulnerability and humanity of those I cannot stand because I sense their grief as well. After all, we are so profoundly interconnected.

Tisha B’Av moves us from mourning into Shabbat Nahamu, the first of a cycle of readings of comfort and consolation. As my meditation practice these days, I am focusing on a chant to the words “Ahavah verahamim, hesed veshalom” – love and mercy, kindness and peace. It helps me both allow the grief to surface and to cultivate the qualities I sense are missing in the world. It is a comfort for me and one which I hope brings strength and loving commitment to a better world.

Last week I had the opportunity to be in Los Angeles for Father’s Day. I was delighted to celebrate with my family by going up to a picnic area by a small creek – complete with a waterfall – in the San Gabriel Mountains. When I was a child, we would often escape the heat and smog of Southern California by going to this lovely canyon with its white granite walls, the cold honey-colored water, the smell of oaks and sage. It was the definition of summer time.

Summer brings us out into the world in ways that we often don’t have during the rest of the year. Sometimes it is a pleasant experience – warmth, greenery, the long days. And sometimes it is less pleasant, too hot or too humid.

But in any case, it gives us the opportunity to experiment with a teaching from one of the texts we often teach in our cohorts. It comes from a very early Hassidic source, Likkutim Yekarim: “A high rung: Always consider in your heart that you are close to the blessed Creator, that God surrounds you from every side. … Be so attached that the main thing you see is the blessed Creator, rather than looking first at the world and only secondarily at God. God should be the main thing you see.”

A high rung indeed! And a beautiful thought experiment as we move outdoors this summer. What would it be like to experience the world through the lens of “This is God”? God: the creek. God: the oak and sage. God: the rattlesnake. God: the humidity. God: the crush of people in the city. God: the open expansiveness of vacation.

If you wish, I’d love to hear how the experiment goes. And in the meantime, I wish you a summer of delight!

]]>http://www.jewishspirituality.org/a-summer-of-delight/feed/0When we listen deeply, what can we hear?http://www.jewishspirituality.org/when-we-listen-deeply-what-can-we-hear/
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It seems to me that Shavuot, the holiday that celebrates the revelation of Torah at Mt Sinai, is an extraordinary opportunity for us to explore listening as part of building our capacity to hear God’s voice. For some, that might not be such an intuitive suggestion. Even if we “believe in” God, which not everyone does, the idea of hearing God’s voice seems archaic. But it invites intriguing questions or thought experiments: How would we know what God’s voice sounds like? What would it say if we could hear it? How would we know that is the voice of Divinity? What practices might help us cultivate more attuned ears?

I have always admired, and committed myself to develop, the ability to listen more deeply, to bring my full empathetic presence to the person speaking. I know that when others do that for me, it helps me to hear my own truth with greater honesty and insight and to explore more deeply than I might have otherwise. When I am listened to in this way, I feel seen and held. In this noisy world filled with bombast and interruptions, that attentive listening can feel like a gift of cool water on a hot day.

Recently, I’ve noticed the emergence of another experience of listening. This listening seems to emanate from a very calm, still point at the solar plexus that moves out and creates a kind of contained spaciousness. When I listen from this place, I notice my emotions are less engaged, not because I have become cold and callous but rather because I am more able to get out of the way for the sake of the person I am listening to. This kind of listening feels very clean and holy to me; it is one I want to continue to cultivate.

One additional suggestion for exploring how to listen in a new way is one I learned from Norman Fischer. He gave a meditation instruction that began with listening to the ambient sounds, whatever they may be: birdsong, traffic, voices, music. Then, he taught, shift your attention and start listening instead for the silence (or perhaps Silence) from which all sound arises and to which it returns. What might you hear?

Maybe this Shavuot we can practice listening more deeply, respectfully, lovingly to the people around us. Maybe we can practice listening to the sounds of the world. And maybe we might hear a Divine voice. May whatever we hear bring blessing.

]]>http://www.jewishspirituality.org/when-we-listen-deeply-what-can-we-hear/feed/0Looking for a Mindful Pesachhttp://www.jewishspirituality.org/looking-for-a-mindful-pesach/
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In my experience, Passover is a holiday that often fails to reach its potential to help us wake up to the power of transformation. The form of the holiday is so overwhelming: the occasionally obsessive attention to food and cleaning; trying to find the right balance of keeping everyone engaged and interested at the seder; the joys and pressures of hosting and being hosted.

And yet, Passover offers an opportunity to explore transformation like no other holiday, not even the High Holidays. The High Holy Days invite us inward, towards repentance. Passover explicitly links our inner liberation with liberation in the greater world and does so in the context of love.

How so?

Passover first invites us into our actual experiences through the eating of the ritual foods, the karpas, matzah and maror. For many of us, these foods are the only foods we eat mindfully all year! The attention to sensation in the mouth (and sinuses, in the case of horseradish) brings us into this moment with full presence. It invites us to investigate what is happening in the body now.

In addition to noticing the truth of our experience, the haggadah reminds us that in every generation we have the opportunity to see ourselves as if we personally left Egypt. This can prompt us to pause and ask ourselves what transformation we are seeking in our personal lives. There may be times at the seder itself that we experience constriction. Perhaps it is around a strained relationship with someone at the table or connected to a religious or political struggle. What would it look like to experience greater liberation in regards to that constriction?

Furthermore, the seder is filled with explicit and hidden references to redemption in the greater world, thereby linking personal liberation and liberation more generally. For example, the story of the five rabbis discussing the exodus from Egypt all night until their students came to remind them to recite the morning prayers is actually a coded story. According to some sources, the rabbis were so inspired by their reenacting of the Passover story that they planned a revolt against the oppressive Roman Empire, instructing their students to warn them with a cryptic phrase about the Shema if a Roman soldier happened to pass by. Our individual liberation is deeply linked to working for liberation in the world, towards welcoming in the spirit of Elijah and an era of greater justice and peace.

And perhaps most important of all, this whole story is framed in the springtime and the Song of Songs, the Bible’s sweet love poetry. The imagery of blossoming and fragrance, beauty and intoxication, the playful hide and seek (and find!) of lovers in a spring time garden reminds us that even when the work of liberation is exhausting and discouraging, love is still available. In fact, love is the foundation that allows the transformation to take place.

So in the midst of the cooking, cleaning, engaging, hosting and being hosted, may we all find a few moments to touch down into love, into mindfulness, and into the connection between personal and communal liberation so that we all may experience greater freedom and possibly even redemption.

I remember periods when everything seemed flush with potential and vibrant with possibility, but these times seem heavy with a kind of dread. We continually see cruelty and bloodshed splashed across screens of all sizes; in so many of our personal circles we have experienced loss and displacement as well. And this is not to mention the fact that the cherry trees were blooming in New York City on Christmas Eve–a wondrous and terrifying disruption.

How am I supposed to respond?

The unique contribution of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality is that we are working to infuse the lived life of Jews with meaning and wisdom through spiritual practices that open the heart and nourish the soul. These capacities are crucial to helping us respond to the darkness.

When my heart sinks in despair at the entrenched systems of suffering, my meditation practice reminds me that things do change and sometimes in surprising ways. When I feel rage rise in me at all those idiots out there, my weekly learning with my study partner helps me notice anew all the nekudot tovot, the points of goodness, in others and in my own life. When I want to turn away in self-protection, my prayer practice urges me to keep my heart open and to listen more carefully.

And my practice also reminds me to notice the blessings of love and health and fulfillment in my own days and to give thanks for them. As the poet Jane Kenyon wrote, “It might have been otherwise.”

Over and over again I find that these practices are a lifeline for me in living a Jewishly meaningful, responsible, compassionate life, even when the world feels dark.

“Know that there are chambers of Torah, and one merits them when one begins to renew Torah; one enters into the chambers, and goes from chamber to chamber and chamber to chamber, for in each and every chamber there are several openings to other chambers… The most important thing is not to fool yourself, thinking that you have already arrived at an adequate understanding. For one who thinks this will remain there, God forbid.”

— Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav, Likutei Moharan, 245

It is so easy to walk around the world and relate to it as if it was a known, fixed entity. The phone rings and we assume we know exactly what the caller wants and how it will make us feel. Our coworker or partner approaches us and we may default to an assumption that we know what it is he wants to say (for the millionth time!). We get in our car and we assume that the experience of our commute must make us feel bored and despondent.

In this passage, Rebbe Nachman urges us to relate to Torah as a new chamber, unknown and fresh—not as the same texts we read last year. This lesson can be applied to everything in life—we can relate to each moment as a new chamber of life, ever unfolding in surprising ways. This orientation of renewal—the bedrock of hitlamdut—is about having an ongoing sense that “I don’t know.” Hitlamdut creates an opening for renewal, a possibility of experiencing continuous growth in our relationships and experiences.

“Meditation? Me?
Why would I want to spend time sitting and focusing on my breath? I’m not the type…”

When I remember that version of myself, five years ago—someone who was not the “type” to meditate—I smile and am filled with gratitude. Gratitude toward my former self, for staying curious, which enabled me to follow a deeper yearning for connection. And, gratitude to the Institute for providing a safe space for inner work, and teachers who inspired me to explore Jewish contemplative practices.

The change in my life is palpable: more joy, less worry, more appreciation for all the blessings around me—blessings which I now am able to notice in their fullness and beauty. One very vivid example is my experience of aging. Yes, I worry about growing older and losing my physical vitality or mental acuity. But while I have never felt more vulnerable, I have learned to embrace it; I ask God for strength and in the stillness and spaciousness of my breath, I am at ease.

how do you remain open to learning?

who are your teachers?

Have you learned anything unexpected from an every day experience? a challenging experience?

A text study on Hitlamdut by Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell,

featuring the teachings of Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav.

“In this passage, Rebbe Nachman urges us to relate to Torah as a new chamber, unknown and fresh—not as the same texts we read last year. This lesson can be applied to everything in life…”Click here for the full text study.

Learning about and practicing anavah (humility) could not have come at a better time; it saved me by helping me to reevaluate my life and escape the pressures of needing to prove myself. I was so used to defining my value solely by my successes, as opposed to by my passions or relationships. Tikkun middot practice helped me realize that what I accomplish—and don’t accomplish—does not define my worth.

What awakens

your curiosity?

Tell us in the comments below!

]]>http://www.jewishspirituality.org/hitlamdut/feed/3Avinu Malkeinu: An Extraordinary Combination of Boundless Compassion and Absolute Powerhttp://www.jewishspirituality.org/avinu-malkeinu/
http://www.jewishspirituality.org/avinu-malkeinu/#commentsMon, 21 Sep 2015 20:36:29 +0000http://www.jewishspirituality.org/?p=3773Read more »]]>It seems to me that this year more people are going public with their discomfort with Avinu Malkeinu, the prayer of supplication that is one of the hallmarks of the High Holy Day liturgy. I suspect that much of the discomfort is due to the difficult metaphors that form the refrain of the prayer, addressing God as our Father and our King. Many of us avoid using male language in reference to God so we try to “fix” the prayer by gender-neutralizing it to “our Parent, our Sovereign” (which feels vague and unsatisfying to me). The real problem is actually deeper: We are stuck with these images of God that either infantilize us or just are so out of our lived experience that they leave us cold. And the explanation that “Avinu” is supposed to be about forgiveness and “Malkeinu” is supposed to be about judgment doesn’t help very much.

But—perhaps appropriately for Yom Kippur—I have a confession. The truth is that I absolutely love Avinu Malkeinu. I always feel disappointed when the holidays fall on Shabbat and we don’t get to recite it. My eyes often fill with tears just opening the machzor, the High Holy Day prayerbook, to that page.

Here is why: A teacher of mine once explained the metaphor like this: “Avinu” (our Father) is about much more than forgiveness. It is shorthand for the perfect parent, the one we all wish we had or could be. Avinu absolutely believes in us, loves us unconditionally, knows what we need and can always provide loving guidance. Avinu is endlessly patient, encouraging, and overflowing with compassion for our attempts to live the best we can in an often confusing and difficult world.

“Malkeinu” (our King), on the other hand, can be less about judgment and more about total surrender of control to a power against which there is no recourse. In the old days, the king could demand pretty much anything: your crops for his store houses, your sons for his army, your own body for his service. If you didn’t like it, that was too bad. There was no appeal. While most kings don’t have that power any more, the truth is there are plenty of important things we still cannot control. Malkeinu is everything that profoundly affects our lives over which we have no power, all the circumstances that we must comply with, whether or not we like it.

And then this extraordinary combination of boundless compassion and absolute power becomes the recipient of our deepest yearnings: Please, let this be a good year. Let our needs be taken care of. Let there be less suffering. Let these things happen in realms over which we have no control. And let them happen even if (even though) we have done so little to deserve them.

Sometimes it takes that evocation of a listener to remember and then utter our most vulnerable longings. And sometimes the fervent expression of those longings is its own answer.

May we all be sealed for blessings of compassion and abundance, joy and connection, in this New Year.